Judge Denies Lower Bond For Fort Smith Homicide Suspect

A Fort Smith man charged in the shooting death of his aunt likely will remain behind bars until he faces trial, after a judge on Thursday denied a request to reduce his bond.

Dustin Trowbridge, 19, has been in jail since the morning after police say he fatally shot his aunt, Rita Jackalynne Anderson, 25, shortly before midnight Feb. 13 and then left her home in her boyfriend’s vehicle.

Police arrested Trowbridge about 5:30 a.m. Feb. 14 at an acquaintance’s residence. On Feb. 20, when he pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and theft of properly, the judge set his bond at $500,000.

Anderson’s boyfriend, Zachary Dunn, told police Trowbridge was “tweaking” on Feb. 13 when he got into an argument with Anderson and started waving a gun in her face, and Anderson slapped the gun away from her head. He said Trowbridge shot Anderson in the face point-blank and tossed the gun in the trash before leaving.

Under questioning by defense attorney Rita Howard Watkins and prosecuting attorney Aaron Jennen, Trowbridge’s mother, Sheila Jeffcoat, declared her commitment to oversee her son if he were granted an affordable bond, even suggesting that he could submit to an ankle monitor and she could obtain a landline telephone if needed.

She described how she took her son out of Northside High School when he began to get into fights and enrolled him at a private Christian school in Cedarville, where he stayed out of trouble and finished school. Over the years, she admitted to having physical altercations with her son and to knowing that at one time he belonged to a gang.

Penelope Buck, an unemployed mother of seven children under 12 years old, said her father paid her bills and gave her the money to employ Trowbridge to clean her house and watch and tutor her children. She paid him between $200 and $400 a week to work six or seven full days a week. Buck said she has had regular contact with Trowbridge since his arrest and would gladly hire him again if he were released on bond.

When Buck revealed Trowbridge wrote her a letter denying fault in his aunt’s death, Fitzhugh called a recess to allow her to retrieve the letter from her car and read it aloud in court.

In the letter, Trowbridge blamed Dunn for “giving her the gun” and getting her “really high” before the shooting, which he said was accidental.

“He pulled a knife on me,” Trowbridge wrote, adding that Dunn ordered him to throw the gun in the trash. “He handed me his keys and told me to leave.”

Larry Phillips, a Fort Smith police investigator who interviewed Trowbridge after his arrest, testified that Trowbridge at first denied being at Anderson’s house at the time of the shooting, then changed his story and claimed the gun went off accidentally.

Although Fitzhugh took into account Trowbridge’s 13 years of residence in the community, his family ties and Jeffcoat’s testimony that her son always appeared for his juvenile court appearances, he ultimately denied the bond reduction because of other factors.

“He has a prior history of violence, fights with his mother, fights with his siblings, two assault convictions, a no-contact order pertaining to his estranged wife,” Fitzhugh said. “All of those things happened between June 2012 and October 2012, in a five-month period right before this latest allegation.”

Pointing out the severity of the new charges — first-degree murder is punishable by 10 to 40 years or life in prison — Fitzhugh said the fact that Trowbridge gave conflicting statements about the shooting “goes to his understanding of the risk he faces if convicted,” as well as the potential to take flight.

“The fact that he fled the scene indicates he is a danger to the community, and bond will not be reduced,” Fitzhugh concluded.

After the hearing, Jeffcoat visited her son for a few minutes before talking to the Times Record.

“I think it’s wrong,” she said of Fitzhugh’s ruling. “He’s been saying all along it was an accident. … When I pulled him out of Northside, he knew he didn’t need to be there getting into trouble. If he didn’t want to go to school in Cedarville, he wouldn’t have done it. He wants to do the right thing. My son is not a monster.”

In November, police arrested Trowbridge under suspicion of felony first-degree aggravated assault with a sharp instrument after he allegedly got into a confrontation and stabbed his uncle, Randy Sanchez-Hernandez, according to a police report.

In that incident, Trowbridge said he accidentally stabbed Sanchez-Hernandez in the abdomen during a confrontation they had after Sanchez-Hernandez had allegedly been drinking, the report states. Sanchez-Hernandez was taken to Sparks Regional Medical Center, where he was treated for the stab wound. Trowbridge also received five stitches to his lip, according to the report.

On Jan. 17, Trowbridge pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault first-degree on a household/family member — a misdemeanor — in Sebastian County District Court and received a one-year suspended sentence.